America needs libertarianism

[WoollyMammoth]

why should be have a big government that tells you how much money you can keep, what you can intoxicate yourself with, how fast to drive, and what truly "matters"?

 

[ebola?]

Meh, Adam Smith detailed the problems with capitalism a long time ago.

It's too bad that many people who try to claim him haven't read him.

As an instructor who's taught Smith, THANK YOU. A lot of people forget that Smith is arguing for marketization in a context where his main opposition is royal loyalists who argue for mercantile privilege.

ebola

 

[Care]

As an instructor who's taught Smith, THANK YOU. A lot of people forget that Smith is arguing for marketization in a context where his main opposition is royal loyalists who argue for mercantile privilege.

ebola

From everything ive been taught the most important feature of Wealth of Nations is advocating unrestricted free markets. How exactly is that outlining the problems of capitalism?

Ive actually been studying liberal theory recently and while I admit ive never actually read Wealth of Nations, ive never heard anything about Smith being anti capitalist in any way.

 

[Escher's Waterfall]

From everything ive been taught the most important feature of Wealth of Nations is advocating unrestricted free markets. How exactly is that outlining the problems of capitalism?

It's been awhile since I've looked at "Wealth of Nations", and I might be mistaking which of Smith's writings this is in, but I do seem to recall Smith being fond of public works and the idea of the role of government in certain enterprises, such as national defense.

Truly unrestricted free markets would not have the government involved in either.

 

[Shrooms00087]

From everything ive been taught the most important feature of Wealth of Nations is advocating unrestricted free markets. How exactly is that outlining the problems of capitalism?

Ive actually been studying liberal theory recently and while I admit ive never actually read Wealth of Nations, ive never heard anything about Smith being anti capitalist in any way.

Go read it.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Book III, Chapter IV, pg.448

POLITICAL economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first,to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.

When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.
Book IV, Chapter I, pg.469

A few of my favorites. He wasn't an anti-capitalist, he was however against certain principles of predatory capitalism. He believed in owning property (etc)

For the record the invisible hand has NOTHING to do with the description given to everybody on the T.V. it's basically a statement against liberalization. Just because "Merchants will seldom do it" does not equate into "the market is always right"

The part of the Wealth of Nations (1776) which describes what future generations would consider to be Smith's invisible hand, ironically, does not use the term. The process by which market competition channels individual greed is most clearly described in Book I, Chapter 7.

Adam Smith uses the metaphor in Book IV, chapter II, paragraph IX of The Wealth of Nations. In the often misquoted and poorly understood paragraph quoted below Smith argues that a preference for the use of "domestic" industry over "foreign" industry to gain individual profit constitutes an "invisible" and benevolent hand which promotes the interests of the nation and society at large while at the same time enriching the individual. The individual may have a selfish motive but the use of domestic industry and labor enriches and promotes the interests of society as a whole.
“ By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it. ”

Smith may have borrowed the expression from Shakespeare's Macbeth. The expression is used in a dialogue in which Macbeth informs Lady Macbeth of his fears for their safety. Macbeth asks the night to destroy his enemy "with thy bloody and invisible hand" (Act 3, Scene 2).

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/index.htm Just a few hours investment.

 

[Care]

Go read it.

Not interested in reading it I have enough stuff to read atm. Thanks though.

In what you posted it sounds like he is arguing that the government should prevent outsourcing. Would it be correct to say that modern economists take his writings out of context in order to support laissez-faire economics?

 

[Shrooms00087]

Among many other things, yes.

 

[MyFinalRest]

Vlat, where have you been? We do need some Libertarianism and less Authoritarianism. Don't let these Obamacrats chase you off.

 

[Bardeaux]

He's been touring the gulags.

 

[ebola?]

From everything ive been taught the most important feature of Wealth of Nations is advocating unrestricted free markets. How exactly is that outlining the problems of capitalism?

Ive actually been studying liberal theory recently and while I admit ive never actually read Wealth of Nations, ive never heard anything about Smith being anti capitalist in any way.

Political prescriptions take on significance in context. In this light, Smith's advocacy of marketization takes on different meaning. In certain instances, Smith points out ills wrought by capitalism and even advocates statist intervention.
egs,
1. In Smith's period, overt military force occupation and severe, capricious tariffs held center stage in maintaining exploitation of the 'third world'.
2. Smith contends that a well-governed society need be in place if largely autonomous markets are to deliver the common good.
3. Smith advocates public education to counteract some of the degradating effects of rote manufacturing labor.
4. And smith considers colluding ologopolies to be the norm for capitalists left to their own devices.

ebola

 

[CFC]

interesting posts, save